Update from a Property Finder

Is the digitisation of estate agency creating a greater need for buying agency?

By Louise Crichton Owner and founder of Louise Crichton Property Search

There is no doubt that the internet has revolutionised the way people search for property. Instant online access to the property market at any time day or night and the pervading marketing mantra that their “dream home” is but one click away has the buying public hooked. For estate agents the ability to market their properties to a vast online audience has catapulted their marketing reach from being primarily local and database driven to being global and almost limitless; so estate agents seem equally hooked too.

In theory digitising the way people find property would seem like a great way to bring seamless, cost saving efficacy to a notoriously imperfect market, whilst giving the house hunting consumer all the information they could ever dream of needing. During the pandemic digitisation has clearly been crucial in helping keep the property market show on the road but is there danger in online information overload? In practice are house hunting consumers truly able to effectively sort the wheat from the chaff in an online market place? Or are they becoming overwhelmed with what appears to be a world of choice, but in reality rarely is? Are all those algorithmic fuelled property marketing emails sent out by estates agents actually read or has DELETE become many people’s default setting?

A digitised market place is only as good as the information uploaded on to it. Out of date property listings that languish online may serve to drive enquiries but they can be misleading and will often disappoint unsuspecting would be buyers. What about the “off market” sector, inaccessible to the trawling online house hunter? As increasing numbers of vendors now seek to avoid the generalised unvetted public gaze of online listing, they are instead choosing to have their properties discreetly and quietly placed “off market” with selected, pre-qualified buyers, often represented by buying agents. Online property listings alone cannot therefore be relied upon to give unrepresented buyers access to whole market information.

Property is a multi-dimensional product but does addictive scrolling through online property listings and the “swipe right” mentality of an increasingly screen driven population encourage buyers to make instant one-dimensional judgements based solely on a few photos, a virtual tour or video the estate agent has uploaded? Might an over reliance on digital media and the resulting reduction in both verbal and face to face buyer interaction with estate agents be a sign that digitisation of the property market is actually creating a disconnect between house hunting consumers and the estate agents selling the properties they want?

I have been a buying agent for twenty-five years and until about eight years ago the majority of my clients instructed me the moment they decided they wanted to buy a property. They had no inclination to search for themselves though and were keen to see what

I could find for them whilst they focused on their day jobs and enjoyed their weekends. Contrast that to more recent years, during which time online house hunting has become a national obsession, and my clients are now tending to come to me in a state of property search distress, emotionally drained and often in despair having first tried unsuccessfully, some for quite a long time, to find and buy a property by themselves. These are high quality, savvy, intelligent buyers whose experiences of searching in today’s heavily digitised property market have alas been far from good. My work with such clients is probably best described as “property search intensive care” and I leave no stone unturned in the process of finding and then acquiring the right properties for them whilst representing their best interests at all stages. Conventional human interaction and communication is at the core of each search and technology plays a supporting role.

Digitisation of the property market has undoubtedly opened the door to a wealth of online information that can be an extremely valuable part of every search, and as a buying agent it is a tremendous resource, but it is not a panacea. To successfully find and then buy the right property takes a broader approach with digital resources just one layer of the process. I believe that engaging with estate agents conventionally (on the phone and in person), physically looking at locations and properties of interest to judge them in real life (you’d be surprised how often onscreen images notably differ from reality) being open to some lateral thinking and considering options maybe outside the tick boxes are all required elements of an effective and successful property search. So rather than making life easier for the house hunting consumer, digitisation of estate agency and promotion of the unrealistic idea that anyone’s “dream home” is only one click away looks to be making things much more difficult for buyers. The changes and challenges that digitisation has brought about appear instead to have created an even greater need for the bespoke, proactive and professional buying agency services that I, and others like me, provide. Please click on the links below for the article which was first published in the 2021 Edition of The London Brokerage magazine https://tlb.fyi/magazine and is reproduced with kind permission of The London Broker www.thelondonbroker.com

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